The Lady of Misrule (21 page)

On the far side of him, William coughed, so it seemed to be him with whom Guildford took issue when he said, ‘Oh, but come on, the chances are she won't.' Either he didn't care who heard him or he considered himself among friends. ‘She's always been ill, always had everything wrong with her, and she's old—'

‘She's not old,' Jane spoke up. She was missing the point, though, surely, because if the Queen had done what Jane had said she'd done in a mere five days, then time was hardly of the essence. ‘And she's not even that ill, it's just chills, headaches, toothache. She could still have a child.'

I was with Guildford on that: I couldn't imagine it of the lady I'd seen below us on the green.

‘Yes,' Jane insisted, ‘yes, she could.'

‘Well, I for one don't think she'll get that far.' He almost sounded bored. ‘I think we'll end up with the princess.'

He was probably right. If the Queen were to die with no heir, then the throne would almost certainly pass to her half-sister, because who else was there? And having vaunted her own legitimacy, it would be difficult for the Queen to disallow her half-sister's. Not impossible, perhaps, given their different mothers, but difficult. She was her father's daughter, in her subjects' eyes, and that was why she was Queen. Well, the other sister was also her father's daughter, and he'd left them equal under the terms of his will.

Jane said, ‘The princess is no better.'

There was an incredulous pause from her husband before
he reminded her, ‘She's
Protestant
.' How, in their eyes, could the princess not be better?

Jane was unmoved. ‘Not enough of one.'

He could barely bring himself to say, ‘I don't think we're in a position to be choosers.'

But as if she hadn't heard him, Jane said: ‘The princess only ever has her own interests at heart.'

Guildford said, ‘Well, perhaps this isn't very noble of me, but at the moment, with us where we are, as long as those interest of hers coincide with my own, I don't think I care.'

And fair enough, I thought, but she still wasn't having it. ‘This is a girl who is contemplating marrying Edward Courtenay.'

‘No,' he corrected her patiently, ‘that's the Queen.'

‘No,'
she was straight back at him, ‘not now. Now it's Elizabeth.' She folded her arms, hard. ‘That's what my sources say, and they're reliable.' So, she had sources. But of course she did. Who was it that had delivered that letter, and how? ‘There's no substance to that girl. She doesn't know her own mind.'

Guildford was struggling now, I sensed, to maintain his air of lofty amusement. ‘She won't marry Courtenay, she's just throwing people off the scent. And if you don't mind me saying,' and he did say it gently, ‘it's been quite a while since you spent any time with her.'

She shook her head, emphatic. ‘She's not going to save this country. You've seen her: toadying to her sister. She'll never
stand up and say what she believes in. She cares too much about saving her own skin.'

Guildford tried, ‘Well, you know, as she's all we've got, perhaps that's no bad thing.'

‘But if I wasn't stuck in here—'

‘Don't,' he said, which had me tense without quite knowing why.

Jane could barely contain herself, but she did.

Guildford, though, didn't. ‘And, anyway,
what?'
His patience was suddenly, spectacularly gone. ‘What could you be doing, if you were out there in the big wide world?'

And now she was the one in retreat, muttering so that I could barely hear the response: ‘More than I can do in here. I can't get the right books, in here. I can't talk with anyone—'

Well, anyone who mattered.

‘
Listen
,' which she couldn't fail to do because he'd raised his voice, ‘I didn't want you shut in here, believe me. But you
are
, and honestly, I don't know any more ways to say I'm sorry.'

This was an echo, I was sure, of some earlier, intimate exchange they'd had, in the days before I'd arrived, and I was desperately curious even as I knew I shouldn't be.

Jane stepped away again into the wet. ‘Well, I can't stand it.'

He was almost shouting: ‘And you think it's what I want? You think I want this?'

I felt I should stop them, do something to stop them, but
then suddenly they had stopped, had already stopped before they'd even really started, and she was sighing – short and sharp – and saying, ‘Well …'

Well, I suppose I should he going.

And, ‘Yes,' he was only too ready to oblige, so that it became the sum total of her leave-taking, that one little word,
Well,
which was no real word at all, and then she was gone, back through the door, leaving me on the wrong side of it. William was remarkably quick off the mark, too, for someone with a limp: already on his way back towards the White Tower.

Guildford and I stood staring after him.

And Guildford said, ‘I saw you.'

When I turned to him, he seemed just as startled by what he'd said as I was.

‘What?'

He took a moment but then could only repeat, ‘I saw you.'

‘Saw me
what
?'

And now it was he who was lost for words. He indicated the green. ‘Walking.' But he knew that was inadequate. ‘On coronation day.'

He'd seen me on the green, all alone; seen me stripped to my bare bones by the wind and more alive than I'd ever been.

‘What were you doing?'

I paused in the doorway with the open door before me. ‘Walking.'
You said so yourself.

Not until I had that door closed behind me did I take a
breath. He was perfectly entitled to look out of his own window. And, yes, I'd been there, right in the middle of the green, for anyone to see. But I hadn't been just walking and he knew it, although quite what there had been of me for him to see, I honestly didn't know.

Incredibly, Guildford took Jane's railing at him about the Queen's retrograde measures as a sign that she was keen to resume their meetings. The very next day, an anxious-looking Mrs Partridge brought word that he was outside and would welcome a little of his wife's time.

Jane checked: ‘For anything in particular?'

Mrs Partridge didn't think so.

‘Well, then,' she concluded, ‘I think we've said all we need to say to each other for the time being,' and she said it so nicely, as if it were the best of all possible responses. As if other married couples were burdened with things to say to each other but by good fortune she and Guildford had now moved beyond that.

Mrs Partridge glanced at me; I rolled my eyes and said I'd let him know. She demurred, as she probably felt she should, but I assured her I was happy to do it. And she knew how I liked an excuse to get outside. But really I'd volunteered because I had a bone to pick with Guildford.

In the middle of the Partridges' herb patch was a trough planted with thyme to make a seat which, as far as I knew, no one ever used. But there was Guildford, now, sitting on it in hope of a fragrant half-hour or so with his wife. William was
keeping well back, crouched on the steps to Beauchamp Tower, playing himself at cards.

I strode up to Guildford. ‘Don't,' as he got to his feet but too late because he already had, so I plonked myself down in his place on that scrubby, springy, scented cushion. If it had been good to tell him to sit, it was even better watching him not quite dare to sit back down so close to me.

There he stood, in front of me, and the sheen of his velvet jacket was substantial enough in itself to be a distinct, additional layer. Everywhere over him were buckles and toggles and buttons, an armoury fending off the sharp-angled October sunlight. Dressing and undressing him must take some doing: no wonder William was permanently enervated. I relayed the message: ‘She's said all she needs to say for the time being.'

He absorbed that. Then, ‘You never address me properly, do you. Anyone else would say, “She's not coming out,
my lord
.'”

I gave him a tight little smile that was no smile at all, which might've said,
I'm not ‘anyone else
', and possibly even
You're not my lord.
And it occurred to me, ‘You don't call me Mistress Elizabeth.'

Surprisingly, he mulled that over. ‘True.' Then folded his arms, defensively. ‘I should. And
you
should address me as my lord, or' – his turn for the unsmiley smile – ‘I could report you for insubordination.'

‘Well, I'm already in the right place for that.'

With a sigh, he gave in and joined me on the herbaceous
seat, which made for quite a squeeze. The air around us held the scent of thyme but, closer, he smelled of mud. ‘You know,
Mistress Elizabeth
, being rude isn't how to go about making friends.'

‘And you're the expert on that.'

He stared resolutely ahead at the Lord Lieutenant's shuttered house. ‘And anyway, why don't you? Why don't you address me properly? Is it because I'm in here?'

Held in the Tower, disgraced, reduced. I was about to say no, of course not,
What do you take me for, kicking you when you're down
, but I realised that it was precisely the reason. He was in here and so was I: both of us in the Tower and, in that respect, equal.

‘I mean, do you call other lords “lord”?'

‘Depends.'

He protested, ‘It does
not
“depend”. They're
lords.
They're what they
are.
It's not for
you
to decide.'

I was enjoying myself, for the first time in a long time. ‘Who does, then? Who does decide?'

For a second, he was stumped. Then, ‘The monarch.'

And it wouldn't do to go disobeying one of those, would it.'

For a moment, he said nothing; together we watched a particularly corpulent raven going about its obscure business.

‘What about my wife, then? Do you call her “my lady”?'

No. Same reason. And anyway, ‘A month or so ago, you'd've been having me call her Your Majesty.' I stood to leave.

Up came those eyes, after me. ‘You don't go to Mass,' he said.

‘Don't I?'

He bit his lip. ‘I've never seen you.'

I started back towards the house.

‘If you said you were going to Mass,' he called behind me, ‘you could come outside every day.'

I could go wherever I wanted any time I wanted, but I called back, ‘What's there to come outside for?'

And when I glanced round, at the door, he half smiled and said, as I knew he would, ‘Me.'

‘You're on your way to Mass,' he said the following day, when I took my place beside him on that bed of thyme.

‘I am.'

He was looking better – his hair had been washed – and even William, too, on the Beauchamp Tower steps, seemed in surprisingly good spirits, delighting in the presence of the Partridges' supercilious cat. All well and good, it all made for a good start, but immediately we ran aground because I couldn't think why I'd come, nor what to say, and I didn't want to be reduced to commenting on the weather, spectacular though it was. He sat pensively, forearms laid along his thighs, hands clasped, fingers interlaced, and earnestly broke our silence with ‘Tell me, then: as a Catholic, do you really believe that the bread is the body of Christ?'

Oh, give me strength.
And anyway, ‘What do you care what I believe?'

He denied it, fast, ‘I don't,' but back-tracked just as quickly: ‘Well, no, I do, if you're—' then flinched from his own unspoken words.

I was intrigued. ‘If I'm what?'

‘If you …' A flex or two of his joined fists, to pass the moment.

‘If I what?'

‘… believe something that's …'

I too was leaning forward, now, but in pursuit, because I had an inkling of where this was going, and I wouldn't let him get away with it. ‘Something that's what?'

And so he gave it up, with bad grace: ‘Stupid.'

I made as if to give that some thought. ‘Stupid.'

‘You know what I mean.'

I shrugged hugely.
Do I? I'm just a stupid Catholic, right?

‘Because you're not stupid,' he insisted crossly.

I tilted my head, mock-solicitous. ‘You sure about that?'

He spread his hands,
All I'm saying is,
‘It'd be a shame for you to be believing something stupid.'

‘Well, thank you for your concern.'

Silence.
Let him stew.
But eventually I said, ‘I suppose a Catholic would say it's a kind of miracle.' And I asked him, ‘Don't you believe in miracles?' before answering for him: ‘Just some of them. The less miraculous ones. You decide which ones to believe. Multiplying fishes and loaves, fine; but
being
a loaf, a step too far.' I sank my hands behind me into the scratchy thyme, and luxuriated in a backwards stretch. ‘Do you believe there's a God?'

‘What?' He sounded nervous. ‘Of course I do.' And dismayed: ‘Are you saying there isn't a God? Are you saying that's a stupid belief?'

I bounced my heels on the base of the trough. ‘I'm saying it's a belief.'

To that, nothing, for a moment. Then, coolly, ‘That's heretical, Elizabeth. You could die for saying that.'

I grinned. ‘Only if you tell.'

He didn't reciprocate.

‘You weren't listening,' I said. ‘I didn't say there wasn't a God; I said I didn't know if there was. I said you have to
believe.'

Still nothing.

‘And anyway, if your wife's right about the way things are going, people are going to be dying soon for saying what you just said about the bread.'

‘I didn't
say
, I
asked.'
He was despondent. ‘Everyone thinks they know what I believe. Everyone thinks they know everything about me.'